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Background Brief: ASEAN 45th Ministerial Meeting: China-Cambodia Coordination Carlyle A. Thayer August 16, 2012

[client name deleted] Q1. What is your assessment of the CICIR [China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations]? It appears to be quite closely tied to Chinas Ministry of State Security, which would add official heft to the comments by Chen Xiangyang. That considered, what do you think of his comments? How do they reflect on Cambodias protestations against claims that China has no sway over its ASEAN chairmanship? How much weight do these comments deserve? ANSWER: There is no doubt that the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations has direct affiliations with the Ministry of State Security and organs within the Chinese Communist Party responsible for external affairs. Chen Xiangyang is a member of the World Politics Research Institute affiliated to the CICIR. The CICIR and its eleven or so institutes should be viewed as analytic bodies that feed into Chinas intelligence community. The CICIR utilizes external contacts to gather human intelligence. Chen Xiangyang writes about contemporary political and security developments in the Asia-Pacific and would be suitably informed to make a general judgment of Chinas relations with Cambodia. I doubt that he would be knowledgeable about day to day operational matters such as reportedly occurred at the ASEAN and related meetings held in Cambodia last month. His conclusion that we co-ordinated very well with Cambodia in that case and prevented an incident which would have been detrimental to China accurately describes what took place in Phnom Penh. China publicly has thanked Cambodia for looking after its core interests. Close observers of Sino-Cambodian relations observed that Cambodian spokesmen often use very similar terminology to that used by Chinese officials, including that the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting was held hostage by the Philippines and Vietnam. Q2. Cambodia clearly has much to gain financially from such close ties to China. In what ways could it hurt? ANSWER: China does not set conditions on its aid and this could lead to influence peddling among Cambodian government officials. Chinese aid policies may also contribute to corruption. Chinese companies operate in their own interests. Their influence over Cambodian government officials could lower environmental protection standards and the enforcement of labour standards and working conditions. Chinese influence could lead to opportunity costs where contracts are

2 awarded to Chinese companies over more qualified and competitive bidders. Finally, Chinese influence at all levels could result in special protection from Cambodian law enforcement agencies akin to extra territoriality during the colonial era.

Suggested citation: Carlyle A. Thayer, ASEAN 45th Ministerial Meeting: ChinaCambodia Coordination, Thayer Consultancy Background Brief, August 16, 2012. Thayer Consultancy Background Briefs are archived and may be accessed at: http://www.scribd.com/carlthayer.